


Thirteen Missing Years

by Justalnant



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Non-Sexual Slavery, Physical Abuse, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justalnant/pseuds/Justalnant
Summary: After thirteen years, Mangetsu Yamaishi kept his word, and sent for his wife and daughter, Shougo Yukitousu and Tenmei Yamatousu, to join him across the sea in one of Eorzea's residential districts and live in relative safety and happiness as a family. But as the Warrior of Light, his mythic obligations, strife and war, take him to ever greater heights, leaving his daughter feeling as if he remains just as distant.This is the story of Tenmei as she finds insight and answers in her father's past and present, the comrades and fellows she never got to meet, and herself.





	Thirteen Missing Years

An Au Ra youth, her knuckles scraped even through layers of bandages, removed her training armor with a sigh. Even as she struggled with the basic forms taught by Ala Mhigan monks, her father had already moved on to a new discipline and left her behind again. The Ishgardian dragoons were notorious for their beautiful and deadly command of aerial combat, a martial art created to challenge even dragons, masters of the skies, for air supremacy. Tenmei could only jump twice her height with great effort. Fitting then, that her father would now master something that would have him metaphorically and literally flying out of her reach.

She cleaned up and checked herself with the small mirror in her adventurer’s bag for any stray cuts or bruises. Tenmei had inherited her mother’s silken, flaxen hair, and her father’s oaken skin and peculiar, piercing eyes, with the ringed irises like bright moonlight. She kept her hair short just like her snow-piercing mother because it got in the way of hunting and training. It amazed her how even now, after they moved to a residential district in Eorzea, her mother still managed to go out far enough to hunt her own game somehow. Now that she thought about it, where was her mother? Probably out hunting as she’d just thought, or shopping for supplies at market. A blessed moment alone in the house… was a perfect moment to go snooping through father’s office.

Well, it was hardly snooping. Her father only separated his office space from the rest of the downstairs with some mahogany partitions for simplicity’s sake, always dutifully ready to walk in at a moment’s notice. He never forbade her mother or her from looking through it. There was always an air of melancholy every time he sat down in front of his safe. He had a chair for it set beside his desk, and sometimes he would grab an old book and write in it. Her father caught her staring at him once, and he simply smiled at her. She remembered that smile. It was kind, but so worn he looked like he’d aged forty years in a sitting.

She walked into the office and turned her head around. She’d seen the rest of it from the kitchen: her father’s low desk with Company and Scion papers on it, the map of Eorzea and Guild recquisitions on the wall, books upon books strewn on the ground, the portraits of the detective and his assistant, and two of his Scion comrades, Yda and Papalymo. Or was it Lyse? She hadn’t noticed the large portrait looming over the safe, however, of a male Elezen with silver hair and a subtle smile in chainmail armor. Another comrade, another chapter of her father’s life she knew nothing about? She noticed he kept the book he always wrote in on top of his safe rather than inside and was confused. Tenmei opened it thinking she would find a boring ledger, only for her eyes to sharpen and her lips to part with surprise and concern. Her father kept a journal. Not only kept a journal, but had kept a journal all this time, these thirteen years since he’d left the Steppe just before she’d been born, before he had gotten caught up in saving the world. She peered over the mahogany partitions and looked around before plopping down in her father’s chair and hungrily reading through his memories.

  
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The elders believe I mean to take the reins of the tribe by sending my rival brethren to die fighting the Garleans. Why can’t they understand?

Our silence at the Domans’ plight contributed to Lord Kaien’s death, and now Doma is forever scarred. The Empire will not stop until all the world is beneath it.

But my protests have earned me too much scorn. They threaten me and my dear Shougo in whispers. I have no choice but to leave the tribe, give up my claim.

I will sail for the west at the break of dawn, and keep nothing but my name and the clothes on my back. Shougo will be safe, as will our child in her belly.

To sail west, I must first make it to Kugane, and already I am hindered. I cannot pay the Ruby Tithe, and imperials and their tempers block passage.

My first strategy was of little success. My poor talent for subtlety revealed me as the Confederate ship had barely left Isari and I was forced to swim back.

A curious, tiny merchant approached me as I shook off the sand and saltwater. He offered to take me to Kugane on his vessel, if I guarded him on his route.

He did not bother to ask of my martial training, but neither did he confess the length of his stay to me. I suspect our bargain is tilted in his favor.

The work is simple, but draining. A furrowed brow to turn away thieves and unwelcome guests. Unload wares and haul profits. Hours long, rest short.

This is the seventh time my new master has begun another circuit. A passing glance at our hold revealed fresh supplies, and the safe open and emptied.

If he took pains to restock while I slept, then he intends to be here for much longer still. I must be vigilant, and confront him next time about my due.

…

The little master still lives, though I doubt he came out of our argument unscarred. I hope he did not. It will be a small comfort as my wounds fester.

Thrice he made sure I slept, before calling over his real muscle in the dead of night. Then I saw why. They hauled goods, gold, and Domans in chains.

I watched as they pulled and beat them worse than beasts of burden. That I hesitated to act then and there is forever seared upon my mind in shame.

It was not until I saw children in shackles that blinding rage overtook me. I thought about Shougo and my child, and charged at the little master.

The two bodyguards stopped me, but not before I beat the heartless slaver into the sand. Our quarrel ended with the sunrise, all of us broken, bleeding.

Some of the Domans managed to cast off their shackles and flee amid the striking of flesh and bone. My body surrendered shortly after that, and I fell into the sea.

The saltwater did little for my wounds. Once I washed up against the sharp rocks, I took what was left of my shirt and tied it around the ugliest gash, but I fear I will rot on this shore.

…

I woke with fresh bandages around my wounds, under a strange roof. An old Doman brought me a bowl of seaweed soup and bowed, saying nothing.

Later, they tried to explain themselves in full. I am no merchant, and so my grasp of Hingan is weak. I understood, however, when the family gathered at the door to the room I had been nursed in.

Grandchildren whose faces I recognized, with bandages where the shackles had scraped their skin raw. My blood quickened, reminded of their captors.

The children bade me stay my rage and asked I not fight the merchant and his men again. To be scolded by ones so young… I apologized and thanked them.

Honor demanded I stay and repay my debt, at least while my wounds healed. I helped the family rebuild their garden, and hid my face with cloth and hood.

I taught the children what I know of hunting and quartering beasts for food, though cooking them is much more difficult than my dear Shougo made it look.

This peaceful life… I yearn for it. I must work hard to fulfill my promise to my dear Shougo and send for her one day, wherever I may be swept to.

…

I lowered my guard while out tracking. I was not expecting to be followed, and found myself beaten and gagged. I could only recognize one voice.

One of the little master’s bodyguards. I was cuffed and tossed in the hold of the merchant ship. A detour, I was told, but I was to be made an example of.

The journey was not short, and neither was my repayment. That I was wanted alive to see the end of it was the only thing that reined in the beatings.

One of the Domans shackled next to me salved the worst of my wounds while the slaves looked away, with herbs shrewdly kept in their rags.

They would not hear my protests. An old man claimed I saved his daughter when I attacked the little master, giving him time to slip her bonds.

Still more claimed I had saved their kin from bondage. I grew scornful at their misplaced admiration. No hero leaves innocents behind, I rebuked.

Silently scolding, the one tending my wounds pressured one of my bruises. The old man sternly judged my words. “If not a hero, then a good man,” he said.

“And from good hearts are all heroes born.” Under their burning stares, I was humbled. They were not illusioned by my actions, but drawing courage from one another’s pain, just as I did. My mind raced. I knew I might not see my dear Shougo again now.

When the bodyguards came again, I groaned and made a spectacle of feeling as worn as my drying wounds looked. This next part would be the hardest.

I blunted their blows with whatever flesh they had yet to bruise or break on me. I dragged my feet carefully. Too much or too little would give it away.

I took careful stock of our surrounding shore. It was just the two bodyguards outside, and the little master looming over my toppled face with a knife.

The slaver took his time boasting, threatening, and drawing my blood, while they brought the other Domans above deck to make a spectacle of me.

Once he was satisfied with his captive audience, he reared to strike the final blow… I caught his knife in my shackles, then ran with him over my shoulders. 

The bodyguards stood slack-jawed, the tiny master wobbling in my grasp, screaming for their intervention. They had no choice but to chase after me.

I spied the Domans over my shoulder, loosing their shackles and making off with the ship just as we planned. I fled, for as long as my lungs scraped air.

I found a splitting rise over the shoreline before my muscles breathed their last. I tossed the jabbering slaver off one end, ran up the other and dove off.

Later, I was told I crawled ashore and spent days in a deathly fever mumbling my dear Shougo’s name without cease. How I survived, I cannot remember.

Word had spread among some of the Domans of my hard-headed deeds. A young couple found me dying, hid me, and nursed me, feeding me with vegetables from the old grandparents.

Others pointed Hingan samurai to the slaver and his men. I do not know what became of him, but it was understood that the law was no longer his shade.

…

My saviors deny me the service I owe them. They know I intended to sail for Eorzea and have already secured my passage. I cannot but thank them.

I will leave a message with the young couple, for the old farmers and their grandchildren, and for all those who shared on that miserable ride with me.

One day, I will return to you a stronger man. When you hear my name again, come look for me in the Steppe, and we will make feast with my family.

…

These larger ocean-crossing ships are nothing like the seafaring vessels I have known until now. This constant tossing and the smell of salt…

If I have to eat one more bowl of rice and cabbage, I will tie myself to the prow and reel sharks up to the deck with my bare hands.

…

I should not have complained. If this storm rages for much longer, the captain says we risk going off-course for at least a week, maybe forced to make port for longer.

We ran aground on a islet, though thankfully not that far from the nearest port. I offered to go with the crew on one of the rowboats to find supplies.

We are not the only ones looking for safe port or supplies. If the market empties before our turn, we will have to journey farther in, wherever this is, and who knows how long that might take.

Word of Doma’s subjugation has reached this part of the world by now and even the most preened merchants find it troubling. The Empire’s reach continues to be without contest.

The talks to arrange for our supplies have run overlong. I get the feeling the merchants mean to either gouge us, or they have something worse in mind…

The captain and the others returned from the merchant more perplexed than worried. They would arrange supplies and even a shipmender for us.

They ask only that we provide a volunteer show fighter for the local pit to improve entertainment. They claim their usual stable has run dry after their best fighters moved on to the Coliseum.

Everyone turned to look at me with glimmers in their eyes. I tried to explain I had no talent for spectacle, but exaggerated word of my deeds preceded me.

I complained further, that my previous employment hastily worded had landed me in shackles and earned me this false reputation in the first.

The traveling crew assured me the arrangement was above board, that the pit was a local distraction for sailors and roughnecks, and slavery was forbidden in this part of the world.

I was not joyful at the thought of reaching our destination as a pile of minced meat, or catching disease from a wound while at sea, but we had little choice.  
  


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Tenmei heard the door above unlock, and quickly put the journal back in its place before scurrying back to her room, grabbing her current favorite storybook out of the messy corner pile and diving quietly onto her futon with practiced fluidity.

“I heard that, young lady,” her mother teased from the first floor, as she set down her bag and what sounded like a canvas bag filled with game. “You weren’t trying to cook alone again, were you?”

“No, mother,” she laughed nervously back.

“Good, come help me with this, and we’ll work on it together now.” Tenmei set the book back down, content, but the images and words still lingered in her head. The father in this journal was no mythical hero, nor a Warrior of Light. And he remembered them, her mother and her, as much as they remembered him. How could there possibly be any continuity between that man and this one? One thing was certain. She needed to get her hands on that journal again.


End file.
